Calcio Debate: The Myth About Italian Football

And then of course the Italian Serie A is boring, terribly dull, pathologically second rate, maybe even third rate. The teams follow the age-old Catenaccio system; they defend, defend and defend, rarely attack and when they do, they do so only for a while and then track back to defend.

There is no entertainment, no thrill, no romance, no technique, no attack, no midfield, no pace, no skills, no dribbling. The players are all old, it is a retirement home. Serie A is crap.

Right, eh?

Absolutely wrong.

To denote Serie A as quintessentially boring and dull is perhaps the biggest misconception after a certain president of a certain nation thought that going to war in the 21st century in Asia would be warmly welcomed by the world. It is a myth that ranks higher than the insane belief that all men who read Namaz and have beards are terrorists.

True, Italian football domestically might lack the often overwhelming aggression and pace of the Premier League and the refined finesse of La Liga but it has characteristics of its own. It has the romance, as exhibited by the Derby della Madonnina , the Derby d’Italia and the Derby di Sicilia ; it has the odd surprise package (earlier Chiveo Verona and now a certain club in Naples), the passion, the spirit and the players. Serie A has a distinct flavour, with tactics and strategies given more importance than in most other leagues in Europe, while teams play with a unique intelligence and shrewdness.

Take Napoli for example. A very young side that after six years away gained promotion to the Italian top flight only at the end of the 2006/07 season, and immediately finished in an astonishing eighth place. They have since gone a few steps further and at the moment are in a not so improbable position to play in next season’s UEFA Champions League. This term they have been playing marvellous football, keeping the ball on the ground, passing it around, using the flanks as well as penetrating opposition defences.

In fact, it is their style and creativity, combined with energy, that has seen them beat Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina at home, as well as draw away at Roma. Napoli are a side that play football the way it is meant to be played. The likes of Marek Hamsik, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Fabiano Santacroce and Walter Gargano are superb talents who have the technique and the requisite skills to play for any of the superpowers.

Then of course there is Juventus. Granted, under Fabio Capello, the archetypal of Italian tacticians whom Real Madrid twice signed to twice win La Liga the ‘ugly’ way - the Old Lady were not a very attacking side but under ‘Tinkerman’ Claudio Ranieri this season, Juventus' game has become enjoyable again. Alessandro Del Piero is still one of the top players in Europe, and when you consider that he is 34 years of age and was regarded a spent force not so long ago, you certainly get the picture.

Then there is Francesco Totti’s Roma, Italy’s answer (well, sort of) to Arsenal in the sense that they tend to play glorious football in an almost naïve fashion. The Giallorossi have been churning out the most entertaining football in Serie A for the past two or three seasons but, like Arsenal, certain mitigating factors have stunted their growth. This season they have been sick but, still, Luciano Spalletti has remained true to the philosophy of playing attacking football.

While Inter, under Jose Mourinho, tend not to be very adventurous and are at times grimly effective and clinical without the slightest touch of romance, their city rivals Milan have always stuck to eye-catching football.

Indeed when they lost the final of the Champions League in 2005, they did so not so much for Steven Gerrard’s heroics for Liverpool (or his penalty dive) as for coach Carlo Ancelotti, who due to the wishes of club supremo Silvio Berlusconi, didn't shut up shop after they had gone 3-0 up, continuing to play further up the field. Indeed there was a rueful feeling that Liverpool had staged that dramatic comeback because Milan had allowed them to. And when the Rossoneri won the European Cup in 2006-2007, they were clearly the most enjoyable side in the competition.

But to judge a league based on its top four or five sides is to judge a woman by her looks. Down the table in Serie A, the teams might not be very attractive commercially but they do not really fit into the abnormally normal fallacy that they play with nine men behind the ball.

For example, a fortnight ago when Reggina hosted Lazio at the Stadio Oreste Granillo, one would have anticipated an away win. After all, the Amaranto were near the foot of the table and heavily tipped for the drop. But astonishingly for a side of their meagre resources, Reggina played a slick passing game, and did not hoof the ball up in the air and play route-one football. The Calabrians almost earned what would have been a deserved point, as they fell to a 3-2 defeat, thereby revealing that there is quite some depth in the lower rung teams.

And then this past weekend, leaders Inter were not so much beaten as utterly humiliated 3-1 by an Atalanta side stuck in mid-table, thereby vividly attesting the team’s propensity to take the game to the bigger sides. And the Orobici didn't win it by the Catennacio system either, continuing to attack at 3-0, when prudence and pragmatism would have sufficed.

One must also not forget about Genoa (currently in fourth place), Fiorentina, Udinese and Lazio, all of whom field attacking 4-3-3 formations, and regularly demonstrate the Brazil-like mentality of “if we concede two, we'll score three”. How many teams in the English Premier League, “the best league in the world”, play with three-men strike-forces? These Italian sides all boast prodigious talents too in Diego Milito (Genoa), Adrian Mutu (Fiorentina), Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), and of course the mercurial Mauro Zarate (Lazio).

Admittedly, there are problems in the game in Italy. Racism occasionally rears its ugly head, not all the stadiums are modern or filled, there is constant controversy, referees can be erratic at times, and the fans can and do misbehave. Perhaps, until and unless Italian football is purged of these menaces it will always be looked down upon.

But these problems shouldn't really dictate how one perceives a league's footballing style. Since the turn of the century, Calcio’s image has taken a dip towards the south and even those who hardly watch any Serie A matches tend to be brainwashed into the media perception that it is “boring, slow and crap”.

Which leads you to wonder when football lovers will wake up and realize that Italian football is not as it is commonly made out to be. When will the emperor realize that he has been duped and that instead of wearing some fancy clothes, he is starkly naked.

What are your views on this topic? Is there an ongoing myth about Italian football? Goal.com wants to know what YOU think…

Subhankar Mondal